Danish ISPs Get Win That Could End Copyright Trolling In Denmark

from the this-is-the-end dept

We have talked in recent years how the scourge of copyright trolling has hit the nation of Denmark particularly hard. While trolling operations started off about the same as they do elsewhere in the world, their requests to unmask ISP customers soon ramped up to enormous levels. It was enough to turn two ISP rivals into allies, with Telenor and Telia fighting in court for their respective customers' privacy rights. After an initial loss, the companies appealed up the legal chain and managed to get a win with the court siding with the ISPs' privacy concerns over the copyright trolls' nefarious business model. After that, one of the copyright trolls appealed to Denmark's Supreme Court, hoping to reverse the decision once again.

It didn't work. The Supreme Court is refusing to hear the case, potentially putting an end to copyright trolling in Denmark.

Unfortunately for the trolls, their hopes were shattered this week when the committee responsible for references to the Supreme Court said it would not be putting the case forward.

As a result, the May 7th decision of the Østre Landsret will stand, with Telenor and Telia no longer required to cooperate with parties involved in trolling cases.

As the article notes, the ISPs will no longer have to cooperate with copyright trolls moving forward. And that really should be the end of copyright trolling entirely, as the whole business model hinges on ISPs being forced to give up their customer information so that those customers can be targeted with the threat letters that have milked so much money from the public. This of course doesn't mean that these ISPs will never be required to hand over customer information. Rather, such unmasking can only occur at the request of police investigating criminal conduct.

Telenor Denmark’s Legal Director, Mette Eistrøm Krüger, welcomed the decision.

“Both personally and on behalf of our customers, I am really glad that we are being strictly ruled by the National Court’s decision, and we once again find that logging data should only be handed over to the police to combat serious crime,” he told Version2.

And so now we're left to hope that the rest of the world's courts will catch up to the pro-consumer stance taken by the legal system in Denmark.

Filed Under: copyright, copyright trolling, denmark, isps, privacy
Companies: telenor, telia

Danish ISPs That Teamed Up To Beat Back Copyright Trolls Get Huge Legal Win

from the clap-back dept

While the world over is dealing with the scourge that is copyright trolling, it is true to say that this virus has not spread everywhere equally. One of the hardest hit countries has been Denmark, where a few copyright trolling practices have caused an insane amount of headaches for the public, and chum within the court systems. It all got bad enough to turn rivals into bedfellows, with two major ISPs, Telenor and Telia, teaming up to push the legal fight to unmask their respective customers back on the copyright trolls. The duo's initial efforts at convincing the legal system that the privacy rights of its customers trumped the rights of copyright trolls to extract settlement cash from them went poorly, with the District Court finding for the copyright trolls.

But the fight for customer privacy didn't stop there and the companies appealed the case up to Denmark's higher courts, which decided for the ISPs and consumer privacy.

“In its order based on telecommunications legislation, the Court has weighed subscribers’ rights to confidentiality of information regarding their use of the Internet against the interests of rightsholders to obtain information for the purpose of prosecuting claims against the subscribers,” the Court said in a statement.

Noting that the case raised important questions of European Union law and the European Convention on Human Rights, the High Court said that after due consideration it would overrule the decision of the District Court. The rights of the copyright holders do not trump the individuals right to privacy, it said.

“The telecommunications companies are therefore not required to disclose the names and addresses of their subscribers,” the Court ruled.

It's a game-changing ruling for Denmark's public. Assuming this is the end of it, copyright trolling as any kind of massive business model in Denmark ought to suffer a quick death. If the trolls can't force ISPs to unmask customers with the faulty evidence of an IP address, the settlement letters will never go out, people will not be fooled into thinking they have to pay them, and the mass income off of these shady practices that make copyright trolling a viable enterprise goes away. We cannot stress enough how greatly this alleviates the public from a burden to defend itself against a flawed and pretend attempt at justice.

Telenor is not going to let anyone make light of it. Nor will they let the public gloss over its fight to protect them.

“This is an important victory for our right to protect our customers’ data,” said Telenor Denmark’s Legal Director, Mette Eistrøm Krüger.

“At Telenor we protect our customers’ data and trust – therefore it has been our conviction that we cannot be forced into almost automatically submitting personal data on our customers simply to support some private actors who are driven by commercial interests.”

A ruling like this should be equally welcome everywhere copyright trolling is a thing. Sadly, in far too many countries, ISPs and rightsholders are often the same people, which is what prevents this type of consumer-first activity from ever occurring.

Filed Under: copyright, copyright trolling, copyright trolls, denmark, isps, privacy
Companies: telenor, telia

Sorry T-Mobile, Other Companies Can Use The Color Magenta

from the trademark-isn't-ownership dept

A while back T-Mobile received a trademark on the color magenta for use in selling mobile phone services in certain markets, but it seems to be taking the trademark a little more seriously than it should, even to the point of threatening the blog Engadget for having a magenta-colored logo. It also took mobile operator Telia to court in Denmark for its own use of a magenta logo, but missed out on a couple of important facts: Telia and T-Mobile don't compete in the same markets in Denmark and (more importantly) Telia's magenta is a different shade of Magenta. The court has not just tossed out the lawsuit, but has dumped the court costs and Telia's legal fees onto T-Mobile's bill. Hopefully that will teach them that trademark law shouldn't be abused.

Filed Under: magenta, trademark
Companies: t-mobile, telia